


Separate Lines

by Tabithian



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 06:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is a terrible idea, Dick,” Tim says, because it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separate Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from theandysar.

“This is a terrible idea, Dick,” Tim says, because it is. 

Dick gives him the puppy dog eyes, which is a bit overkill considering how awful he looks. Beat up and bruised and under the close eye of Alfred while Bruce is off on Batman Inc. business.

“Just remember whose idea it was when you see us on the news,” Tim says. 

Dick laughs like he thinks Tim's joking. He's not. Odds are good this is going to end in tears and bloodshed and Tim and Damian on the evening news. 

“Uh - “

“You get to explain it to Bruce,” Tim says, and the look on Dick's face is almost – almost – worth it.

********

Alfred drops Damian off at Tim's apartment the next morning.

“Drake.”

Tim raises an eyebrow at Damian's greeting. He's got his arms crossed, familiar scowl in place like he'd rather be anywhere but where he is. 

“Damian,” Tim says, stepping aside to let him in.

Damian walks past, limping slightly and trying to hide it. He looks around Tim's apartment, taking everything in, which really. There's not a lot to see. The furniture and décor are the result of a decorator, no personal touches.

“This is dreary,” Damian says, glancing at Tim. “Even for you.”

Tim rolls his eyes at that. “Yeah, well,” he says with a shrug. “I haven't been in Gotham that much.”

Not until recently, anyway, and it seems as though his time away has been a good thing. He doesn't get along with Damian, but. He can see where that might have been just as much his fault than Damian's, and that.

Things have changed since Damian took up the role up Robin, for all of them. Tim's in Gotham more often than he used to be. He misses Gotham, misses Bruce and Dick and Alfred. Misses the city he grew up in, spent so much of his life protecting.

“What?” 

“Nothing,” Tim says, and gestures to the couch. “Have a seat.”

Damian takes a seat, stiff and uncomfortable and very much hating it.

“Would you like something to drink?” Tim asks.

Damian shakes his head and politely declines.

“All right, I just need to finish up some work first, sorry.”

Damian doesn't quite sneer, but. 

After a few moments Damian starts poking at the books on the coffee table, sighing and huffing as though the selection personally offends him. 

Tim's almost done when Damian makes a surprised noise. 

“Damian?”

Damian holds one of the books up for Tim to see. One that wasn't chosen by his decorator.

“Oh, that,” he says, not really knowing how to explain.

Damian's holding the latest edition of a photography textbook Tim had gotten as. A whim, maybe? He had an earlier edition packed up somewhere. Worn with time and use, pages coming loose. Notes scribbled in the margins, scraps of paper used to mark sections he frequently used.

Everyone in the family knows about it by now, of course. Not the book itself, so much as the subject and how it relates to Tim.

“I thought it might be a good idea to refresh my memory on techniques,” Tim says. He doubts Damian wants or cares to hear about the other reasons Tim has the book.

Nostalgia, for one. 

Tim taught himself photography from books, a way to fill the time that grew into something closer to a hobby, and then. Well. Obsession wouldn't be a bad way to put it, really. 

“Why?” Damian asks, skimming through the book.

The pictures Tim takes now are almost always for work - surveillance, reconnaissance – with an occasional one of Dick or one of the Titans being ridiculous. (Which can usually be used for blackmail purposes, not that Tim would ever do something like that.)

Tim doesn't know what to make of the fact that it's taken him an embarrassingly long time to realize that. 

He looks at Damian who's scowling down at the book in his hands, and makes a decision.

“Come on,” he says, I'll show you.”

There's every possibility this will blow up in his face, but.

“Why?”

“Because,” Tim says, reaching over to take the book from Damian. 

He gets a glare for that, which was expected.

“It'll be fun,” Tim says, smiling at the look that gets him. He's probably been around Dick too much, or maybe this is Jason's influence, it's surprisingly hard to tell sometimes.

********

“This is stupid.”

Tim doesn't disagree entirely, but. 

“Probably,” he says. “Here, if you wrap the camera strap around your arm like this you won't move so much.”

Damian shoots him a look that says Tim's help is very much not needed nor is it appreciated. Tim holds his hands up and backs away. He's trying to get along, and it's clear Damian's doing the same, but. It's _them_ , and maybe this was asking too much of both of them just now.

“I don't get the point of this,” Damian says a few minuets later. Frustrated, annoyed. “Are we looking for someone? I don't - “

“No, Damian,” Tim says, lowering his camera to look at him. “This isn't for work.”

Damian's hands tighten on the camera Tim loaned to him for this. “Then why are we here?” Damian asks. “This is pointless, a waste of time.”

Tim sighs, carefully rescuing his camera before Damian inadvertently damages it. He presses a few buttons to bring the gallery up and turns it towards Damian.

“This is why,” he says.

The pictures Damian's taken are of the people walking past them, lost in their own worlds. The kind of pictures that would be paired with a profile listing known identities and identifying characteristics. Perfect for a file, not so much for this.

Damian _looks_ at him. 

“This isn't for work, Damian,” Tim says again. “This is supposed to be fun.”

He hands the camera back to Damian and brings up the gallery on the one he's using. 

“Okay, see that building?” he asks, pointing at one of the buildings at the edge of the park.

Damian looks like he's trying very hard not to say something disparaging. “...Yes.”

Tim waits.

“Drake - “

“Now look at this,” Tim says, and shows Damian the pictures he's taken. 

They're not. Not like the ones he used to take, before he discovered Dick and Bruce's secrets, before his focus shifted away from Gotham's architecture and her people to a few select individuals.

There's a little too much of Red Robin in them, not enough of _Tim_ , but he's just starting out again.

“Congratulations,” Damian says. “It's a gargoyle. Truly, I've never seen the like.”

“I know,” Tim says. “And in Gotham of all places.” 

Damian stares at him.

“Seriously, though,” Tim says. “Look.”

The building is one of the older buildings in Gotham with exquisite architecture and old stone gargoyles that are too unstable to use on patrol. Crumbling and fading but not yet gone. There's character to it that so many of the newer buildings lack.

Damian looks at the picture for a long moment, eyes flicking up to the building and back.

“I know this probably doesn't seem like fun to you,” Tim says, bringing up another picture he'd taken, this time of people taking advantage of the good weather to get outside. Color and movement and life. “But it's one of my oldest hobbies.”

One that he hasn't made time for in far too long. On to another photo that makes Damian's eyes narrow when he sees it. 

It's a picture of Damian with his camera raised to take a photo of someone in the crowd and unaware that Tim was taking his picture.

Still further back and there's Dick tackling Damian for a hug with Titus watching anxiously from the sidelines. One of Bruce giving Alfred a half-smile, nearly out of frame. Alfred with his hands on his hips and eyebrow raised.

“Some of my best pictures are like these,” he says. 

Maybe it's something to do with the years spent following Batman and Robin around Gotham taking photographs of them without their knowing. Maybe it's something else entirely.

“Pointless,” Damian says, but there's. 

“More than likely,” Tim says. “We still have some time before Alfred comes to pick you up, is there something else you'd rather do?”

Damian looks at his camera and over to the people wandering the park. The buildings rising above the trees around park. Darts a look at Tim, assessing.

“I doubt there's much time left for anything worth doing,” he says, like this is the least painful option.

“So gracious,” Tim says, but it's amused. 

“ _Tt_.”

********

Dick keeps arranging “play dates” for Damian and Tim after Alfred decrees him well enough to go on patrol, to everyone's annoyance.

Still.

Tim's apartment starts to feel more like a home with each new photograph he puts up. 

Damian never says anything when he sees the photographs he took hanging on Tim's wall, and neither does Tim.


End file.
